More Afrobeat: here’s Tony Allen playing with Africa 70. The tune is African Message, from the album No Accommodation For Lagos. Tempo is 118. It’s starts with solo drums playing this groove: Here’s a little […]
Category: African music
Practice loop: Fela Kuti / Buy Africa
Oh, here’s the practice loop I’m using with that 4:3 Chaffee thing. It’s sampled from Buy Africa, by Fela Kuti, from his 1971 album Fela’s London Scene. Tempo is about 87 bpm. It’s in 4/4, […]
Daily best music in the world: Pygmy music
I’m working on a couple of new book ideas right now, so you’ll have to content yourselves with perusing our voluminous archives, and digging this absolutely amazing Pygmy music— African people also known as Aka or […]
Aka Pygmy clave
This is just a brief investigation of an interesting rhythm, a sort of clave rhythm clapped by the lead performer in the video below— a candid video of three Aka Pygmy people performing a polyphonic […]
More Igbo grooves for drumset
More grooves from that video of Igbo percussionists from the other day— I called it “ogene”, but that is the name of the bells the musicians are playing; the name of the tribe and the […]
Groove o’ the day: Ogene 6/8
Via African Muzik Magazine and Famoudou Don Moye, music by traditional Ogene musicians, from Nigeria: I’m transcribing some of the cool instrumental breaks they’re playing on the bells, between vocal parts, but until I get […]
Groove o’ the day: Tony Allen — No Agreement
Finishing up a long Ed Blackwell transcription, so while U wait, here’s a pretty classic Afrobeat groove from Tony Allen. The tune and album are No Agreement, by Fela Kuti: The variations and fills are […]
Straight 8ths within Afro 6/8
I keep feeling like I have to justify doing so much with the Afro 6/8. I’m just working with it a lot, and here we are nothing if not personal and idiosyncratic. I also feel […]
Groove(s) o’ the day: On the streets of Aba, Nigeria
I loved this video so much I wanted to lay on you a transcription of the whole thing, but we’re going to have to settle for just getting the basic groove. I hit a wall […]
C.K. Ladzekpo’s basic polyrhythms
From the This portion of the recent This/not this: polyrhythm post, I’ve written out C.K. Ladzekpo’s list of basic polyrhythms every Ewe learns while growing up, along with our now familiar 6/8 bell pattern: You […]
This/not this: polyrhythm
This post was going to be a survey of YouTube videos on polyrhythm, but most of them were so bad, it was shaping up to be a real bloodbath. So let’s just summarize by reviving […]
Bembe Wheel coordination
Here are some generic snare drum and bass drum coordination/performance patterns for use with the bell patterns in the Bembe Wheel. Each one of those patterns deserves at least one individually-tailored “page o’ coordination”, but […]